Early bird CSA Spring, when a young diner's fancy turns to thoughts of eating local. That feeling comes even earlier in Northfield, Minn., where the Just Food Co-op will be selling among the year's first Community-Supported Agriculture shares from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturday. It's part of its Winter Eat Local Challenge, which brings local purveyors to its store at 516 Water St. S. Also on Saturday, Homestead Apiaries of Dennison, Minn., will be sampling raw honey from 4 to 6 p.m., and on Sunday, One Sun Farm and Bakery of Lafarge, Wis., will offer frozen pizza from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. For more info, call 1-507-650-0106 or go to www.justfood.coop. For more CSA news, see Counter Intelligence on T6.
Speaking of local Once a year, food writers Anthony Bourdain and Michael Ruhlman amuse themselves by staging the Golden Clog Awards, gently skewering their compatriots in the food industry. Among this year's categories is the "Looking for love in all the wrong places" award -- a backhanded compliment lauding great chefs working in places too far-flung for the Cloggers to fathom. Among those nominated: our own Jim Kyndberg at the Bayport Cookery, Bayport, Minn. Others on the list: M.J. Adams at the Corn Exchange in Rapid City, S.D.; Andrew Meek at Sage in Windsor Heights, Iowa, and Stuart Tracey of the Pirogue Grill in Bismarck, N.D.
Web-based tutoring However worldwide the Web may be, it's always local somewhere. In the case of RecipeTips.com, that means Austin, Minn., where Tecstra Systems has been building food-related sites for 10 years. RecipeTips is its newest, and while it's chock-full of recipes, it's distinguished by its tutorial voice. The Tips and Advice section talks about knife choice, types of pasta and food shelf life, while its glossary defines terms from acerola (a West Indies fruit) to zutano (a variety of avocado). The site recently added online forums, where a query about Chebe bread got a quick response. Chebe bread? That's a Brazilian gluten-free cheese bread. Go to www.recipetips.com.
Baking against hunger Register for Share Our Strength's fifth annual Great American Bake Sale to help the 12.6 million U.S. children currently suffering from hunger, especially as they move into the summer months and away from school nutrition programs. The bake sale, sponsored by Domino Sugar and C&H, has raised more than $3 million. For more info on hosting a sale, or to sign on to an existing effort, go to www.strength.org by June 30.
